The powerful grasp and grope; the Sacred prevails
This passage from Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching speaks to the futility of trying to control or dominate the Earth. The Sacred has a power completely different from human ambition—like water slipping through grasping fingers, it cannot be possessed or shaped by will alone.
Painting: Snowy Waiting
The powerful grasp and grope
Control of the Earth just beyond their fingertips
It slips away.
The Earth, a Sacred Vessel
Marred by man, abused by man
But the Sacred has a power
Completely different than that of humans
Control slips away, the Sacred prevails
Like water between grasping fingers.
- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching. Heron Dance interpretation.
. . .
The more common translation:
Those who would take over the Earth
And shape it to their will
Never, I notice, succeed.
The Earth is like a vessel so Sacred
That at the mere approach of the profane
It is marred
And when they reach out with their fingers it is gone.
- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching. Witter Bynner translation from The Way of Life, According to Laotzu